The Mark
by Charlotte1
Summary: Years into the future Draco Malfoy tries to deal with a persistent sevenyearold wanting to know about the thing he least wants to tell her about. Short story.


**Title: The Mark**

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words and the original characters. The rest of this fabulous world belongs to JK Rowling

Summary: Years into the future Draco Malfoy tries to deal with a persistent seven-year-old wanting to know about the thing he least wants to tell her about.

_A Generations spin off – if you like the characters, you'll love the Generations series, which chronicles the next generation at Hogwarty_

**The Mark**

It was Saturday morning in the height of summer, and Leshia Malfoy was bored. Seven years old and charged with more energy than most children her age, she longed to be somewhere where she could run around till her heart's content, but as she lived in the centre of London, this posed a slight problem. Her father Draco didn't like Leshia stepping outside the front door, let alone going for a wander around the neighbourhood, and their back garden was so unsatisfying. The girl had had hopes of a visit to her friend Katie Potter's large manor in the countryside, where not only did they have the space to run around – in the form of one hundred acre estate – but they also enjoyed the cool waters of a beautiful lake and the adventures that the small wood brought to boot. Katie and her younger brother Michael were terrifically lucky Leshia often thought to herself.

Rachel Weasley, Leshia's other best friend, also enjoyed the benefits of the countryside on her regular visits to see her grandparents at the Burrow, the old charming family abode. There were fields aplenty to run wild in, forests to get lost in and hills to roll down. Every time Leshia was lucky enough to go for a visit she felt she had to be dragged home before she would ever leave voluntarily.

Sat now on the first floor landing with her legs dangling between the banister railings and her forehead leaning against one of the slats, the little girl was the epitome of boredom. She was watching her father down below in the hallway, who had promised he would take her into town; only to suddenly take back said promise when a very important case had been personally delivered to his hands by a Ministry official. So important was this file, that Draco Malfoy had dropped do a cross-legged position right there on the welcome mat in order to scour the file for any leads.

"Daddy?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm bored."

"Hmm." Silence. Leshia wrinkled her brow petulantly.

"No dad I don't think you understand, I'm bored," she tried again.

"Yes I heard you the first time baby," her father replied brusquely, as he massaged his furrowed brow.

"Can we do something?" Leshia asked hopefully.

"Not now, I'm very busy."

"You said we'd go into town," the girl said sadly as she recalled how excited she'd been when her father had promised her he would take her, that nothing was going to get in the way.

"Yeah I know I did, we'll go later," Draco managed distractedly as he rifled through the pages trying to connect the dots in his head.

"But I don't want to go later, I want to go now," Leshia countered, knowing full well that 'later' in such a case would mean 'not at all'.

"Leshia please!" Draco said sharply before he finally looked up from his work. The little girl looked a picture, with one sock dangling off and her blonde curly hair wild around her head like some sort of divine halo. He wasn't mad at her of course, but she needed to understand that Draco had important commitments to the Ministry…she had to understand. "I'm working. I'm sorry we can't go into town at this second, but when this is done we'll go straight away I promise. So the sooner you leave me alone, the sooner we'll be able to go." Leshia gave her father a hard look as he looked down at his papers once more.

"I'll go into town on my own then," she said simply. Down below a small sound escaped Draco's throat sounding very much like a laugh of derision.

"You certainly will not," he countered.

"Rachel goes into town on her own all the time," Leshia was continuing with her head cocked to one side thoughtfully.

"She does not, she goes down the road to buy sweets at the shop with her sisters," Draco countered without looking up from his work. "And walking down the street to a local shop in a family neighbourhood is a little different to wandering around central London on your own when you're only seven years old sweetheart." Leshia wrinkled her brow in upset and finally heaved herself to her feet with the aid of the banisters. If her father wasn't going to part with his attention willingly, then she was going to have to make him. Draco was so immersed in his file once more that he didn't even realise Leshia slowly descending the stairs until she was right by his side and trying to crawl into his lap.

"What are you doing?" he asked tiredly and leant back giving the girl the space she needed to get comfortable. "I don't have time baby, I _have_ to do this case."

"So do your case," Leshia complained. "I'll help you." Draco smiled despite himself and rubbed the long hair on the back of his head tiredly in a semi stretch.

"Thanks, but I've got it covered, really," he assured the little girl before he leant round her in order to carry on working. Leshia was only a tiny thing and before he knew it he'd practically forgotten that she was there. With a little physical contact Leshia was contented for the moment and after getting bored by the facts and figures on her father's boring paperwork she glanced at his left arm. Peeping out from under his sleeve was the mark she'd always wondered about. She'd never asked him about it and he would never talk about it voluntarily without being prompter, so Leshia had no idea what it meant. As on most days, Draco's sleeves were long; in this case, a thick grey ribbed long sleeved T-shirt, but as he had passed into 'work mode' he'd pushed them up slightly just about revealing the Dark Mark on his forearm.

Feeling suddenly desperately curious Leshia reached out and pulled her father's sleeve up a little higher, revealing the Dark Mark in its entirety. It was a very frightening tattoo the little girl felt and wondered why her father had chosen to put something so horrid on his arm, and if he had done so voluntarily, why was he so ashamed of it that he kept it covered so often?

"Don't," Draco told his daughter and he tugged his sleeve back down. Tenaciously, she pulled it back up. "Leshia!"

"What is it?" the girl asked, ignoring her father's wishes. Draco sighed heavily and reached out to hide the mark on his arm with his other hand.

"Its…" he began, but then he trailed off and pulled his sleeve back down. Within moments a little hand was reaching for the sleeve again. Draco intercepted it quickly. "Don't, or you can't sit with me." Leshia sighed heavily, but she wasn't perturbed. She'd got an idea into her head and now she wasn't going to back down. For a few moments she left her hands clasped in her lap while Draco became emerged in his work and sure enough, without realising it he pushed his sleeves up his arms and there it was, seared into the soft pale skin on the underside of his forearm. Leshia marvelled at her father's arms, for she couldn't understand how they were so hairy compared to her own. Uncle Ron had very little hair covering his arms, which were also consequently orange and made Leshia giggle, though she wouldn't want to touch them. Her Uncle Harry had a mere dusting himself of jet black hairs over his arms and Leshia could get her head around that just about, but her father! Thick and long hairs in varying shades of blonde to black covered his arms making him look like a werewolf to the girl; in fact, she had taken advantage of this once and pretended to her friends that her father was in the throws of transforming into a werewolf, which had frightened Katie and Rachel no end.

And yet, with all that, there was no hair on the underside of his arm where the offending tattoo lay, depicting the open skull with the snake winding in and out of it. It had faded a lot now with the partial destruction of Voldemort, but it was still a horrible reminder of the life Draco was desperately trying to forget. Very slowly, while her father was terribly distracted with a difficult part of the file, Leshia reached out and touched the skull in the depiction. As though a current of electricity had been passed through him Draco jerked his arm away and clutched Leshia's hand tightly in his own.

"What are you doing?" he demanded brusquely, before he lifted his daughter out of his lap, swept the papers into the manila folder and then climbed to his feet.

"Does it hurt?" Leshia asked curiously, and she followed her father through to the kitchen where he dropped down at the large dining table. It was rather a joke to call it such however, as it hadn't been used for this purpose in at least fourteen months, not since Hermione… Ever since it had served as a desk for Draco, who littered it with countless oodles of files, cases, books, business cards and discarded coffee mugs. Clearing a space in the debris Draco dropped his file onto the table and opened it again, very aware of the fact that Leshia had crept onto the seat to his left and was leaning on the table. Though she was testing his patience, he had to admit she looked adorable leaning her childishly overly large head in her upturned palms, and her elbows holding her up on the tabletop. Her eyes were watching his arm, and though he didn't want to admit defeat, Draco was conscious of the fact that he was going to have to tell her something eventually about the mark on his arm.

"Baby go play, please," Draco urged the girl, but she ignored him and continued to stare at his arm determinedly. Without the time to dissuade her on her quest Draco returned to his state of permanent submergment in his work and Leshia simply bided her time. Very slowly, she started inching across the table towards his arm. First, she flailed her arm out flat and rested her head on it, while she fingered the wood grain of the table. Draco was far too busy to be aware of what she was doing, though he did jerk back to awareness when once more her felt little fingers touching that horrible mark on his arm.

"Leshia!" Draco complained firmly and he squeezed her hand tightly making the girl wince a little.

"Daddy what _is_ it?" the girl persisted, evidently not perturbed by Draco's temper, which was about to explode.

"Right that's it," Draco grumbled and he scribbled something onto a piece of paper which he shoved into Leshia's hand. Then before she'd had a chance to glance at it he'd climbed to his feet, his chair scraping loudly on the tile floor, and lifted Leshia from her feet and into the grate in the large hearth.

"Dad…" the girl began, but by now Draco had collected a handful of floo powder and thrown it to the floor in the grate.

"Potter Manor," he said firmly while the green flames in the fire roared up around his daughter. He just about caught the very wounded expression on her face before she disappeared. For a few moments Draco felt horrible about himself, but then he caught a glimpse of the file on the table and with a heavy sigh he got back to work.

XXX

_Ginny,  
This is an emergency!_

Across the country in Hertfordshire where the expansive Potter Estate nestled into the rolling hills and green landscape, Ginny was rereading the little barely legible note the little girl before her had held out in surprise when she suddenly appeared in the grate. Rolling her eyes in frustration at Draco, Ginny smiled warmly at Hermione's little girl and wrapped her arm round her shoulders.

"Now then, what happened this time?" she asked kindly as she led the girl towards the garden where her daughter Katie was playing.

"I was just asking about the mark on daddy's arm," Leshia explained and instantly Ginny had gained the insight she needed to understand how the situation had so developed that suddenly Alecia Malfoy had appeared in her kitchen out of the blue. "He promised me he'd take me into town, but then he started working again!"

"Oh Leshia, you know your dad, he works far too hard," Ginny sighed. "He doesn't mean to break promises."

"He shouldn't make them then," Leshia grumbled.

"No, you're right."

"Ginny do you know what that mark on dad's arm is?" he girl asked curiously. Ginny frowned and wondered what Draco might say if she explained to the girl what the Dark Mark was and why he'd been branded with it, but then again, Leshia was the most persistent seven-year-old Ginny had ever encountered and she knew the girl would not let up on this task. Before they knew it she would have dragged Katie and Rachel into it and the girls would be on a mission. No, better ward the girl's curiosity off now.

"Yes I do," she replied thoughtfully. "Leshia your dad has that brand on his arm because a very long time ago he was part of a group that he didn't want to belong to. They made him join and they made him get the mark on his arm."

"Like a club badge?"

"Yes something like that," Ginny replied with a fond smile. "Anyway, this club wasn't a very nice club you see and your dad doesn't like to remember what it was like to be in it."

"He didn't want to talk about it," Leshia sighed.

"No I'm sure he doesn't. He wants to forget about that time Leshia, and I don't think that you want to upset him by asking him all about it do you?" Leshia shook her head dolefully.

"I just wanted to go town," she sighed. By now they'd reached the back door onto the vast back garden where Katie was holding a little tea party with her dolls. Upon seeing Leshia the raven-haired adorable girl on the lawn waved enthusiastically.

"Leshia!" Leshia waved back happily, before she looked up at Ginny with so much conviction and maturity that Ginny's eyes watered at the sight of the little girl.

"I'll never ask him about it again."


End file.
